Two wonderful women have shared pictures of their Potpourri quilts with me this week.

The first is by Pamela Olney of QuiltWorks Northwest, Beads and Beyond.

The second Potpourri quilt is by Mary Lou Nevin.  She took my class at Bernina Connection last Saturday, but showed up with the center already finished!!!!  I love how she made the stems thicker. 

Thank you ladies!!!!!!! It is so exciting for me to see how others interpret my patterns.

Hi, I'm Vanessa Fromm of Fabric Confetti.

Welcome to my studio(s).

First up is my desk where I have two computers. I design on the Mac with 2 screens and I digitize on my PC laptop. There was a point in time that I did everything on my Mac but last summer I got tired of using Parallels on my Mac to run my digitizing software, so I broke down and bought a gaming PC. It works wonderfully now, and I share files through Dropbox.

 

 

 

I'm starting off the new year and trying to keep to my resolutions (or routines). The first is to blog once a week and the second is to email once a month.

I will be participating in the Fat Quarter Gypsy's Studio Spotlight Blog Hop on the 22nd of January, so I am trying to finish projects and clean up my studio. 

I got the idea for this steering wheel sleeve when I watched the Red Thumb commercials by Nissan while I was watching The Voice.  The idea is that by wearing something red on the thumb that you text with, it will remind you not to text while you drive. Of course, I have to hold my phone with one hand and text with my right pointer finger because I never got the hang of holding my phone and texting with the thumb of the same hand.

Drive Safely!!

I've been making several chalkboard table runners and chalkboard placemats as Christmas presents.  And, even I can make mistakes such as hitting the front of the chalkboard fabrics with the iron.  

Thus, I have come up with a solution.  While you are constructing your table runner or placemat, ALWAYS iron from the back. Then after you finish quilting your piece, pin (or in may case, tape) a piece of cotton fabric over the chalkboard fabric so that you do not inadvertently hit it with an iron as you are applying your binding.  

My entry, my Orange Dynasty Quilt, won the Neat Scanner Orange Wednesday Sweepstakes!

If you go to their Pinterest page, my entry is way down at the bottom because it took me so long to figure out how to pin on someone else's page.

My dad helps me with my business and he uses the Neat scanner to scan in and organize all my receipts and the business cards I collect. Now I will have my own! Check out their FB page or their website. http://www.neat.com/

It's great going paperless. Also, if you have the cloud you can check out your files from any of your devices or computers.

I needed a little break after quilt market and decided to work on Christmas presents etc.  First up were dog collars and bowties for the canine boys.  I  looked around on the internet for tutorials but could not find exactly what I wanted.  Thus, I decided to make my own.

For the collars, I purchased 3/4" nylon webbing and deluxe dog collar hardware kits (also 3/4") from Country Brook Design. 

They also have a great tutorial on making dog collars.

Next, I decided to make detachable Bowties.  I have three medium-sized dogs so decided to make 4" wide bowties.

Step 1:

Cut a 6" x 8.5" fabric rectangle for the bowtie and a 1.5" x 6" fabric strip for the closing strip
(for lack of a better name).

Step 2:

Fold the large rectangle in half lengthwise, right side together, and stitch with a 1/4" seam.

Step 3:

Turn right side out.

Step 4:

Fold in half width-wise with right sides together and stitch with a 1/4" seam.

Step 5:

Press seam open and turn right side out.

Step 6:

Fold smaller strip in thirds lengthwise and glue shut with liquid stitch.

Step 7:

Lay closing strip on top of bowtie with raw edge side down. 

Step 8:

Pull together and pin.  You can even out the pleats after the closing is stitched together.

Step 9:

Using a zipper foot, stitch the sides of the closing together as close to the bowtie as possible.  
(You will have to move your needle position.)

Step10:

For a 3/4" collar, your tabs will have to be 1 1/4" long. Measure and iron.  

Make sure that one tab is folded towards the middle and one is folded away from the middle.

Step 11:

Cut a 5/8" piece of velcro.  I was lucky to have some red for the occasion.

Step 12:

Stitch one side of the velcro to the tab that is folded towards the middle and

the other side of velcro to the tab that is folded away from the middle.

Step 13:

Trim any excess velcro away and you are finished!!

Now, just fasten to your collar.

All three boys are now ready for Christmas!

 Here's Olivia's Max in his collar!

I've been working with Rumpled Quilt Skins in Okotoks, AB Canada to create Brother's ScanNCut cutting files for my Marianne quilt.  With the use of these cutting files, the store started a block of the month class this month. Linda, the owner, made this gorgeous black, white, and gold version of Marianne which attracted at least a dozen customers to participate in the BOM program.  Thank you Rumpled Quilt Skins!  Keep the photos coming ;)

Last weekend I was asked to teach my Confetti Pillows at the September meeting of the Phoenix Modern Quilt Guild.  I provided patterns, chalkboard fabric, fusible letters (cut with my Silhouette Cameo), and confetti. We had lots of fun!